There is no cavern so deep, no darkness so profound that the Holy One cannot penetrate it with his mercy. It is unrepentant and stubborn guilt alone which resists Him. Soon as the cry left her lips, Katharine found her answer. Notwithstanding the hardness of her bed and the damp air which floated heavily around her, she grew calm; some heavenly strength fell upon her, and, folding her hands peacefully over her bosom, she fell asleep. The water kept dropping from the roof, monotonous and cold; the fresh straw grew moist under her cheek, but she smiled in the darkness and whispered softly of a little child that had come from a pleasant, happy place to comfort her, and which would visit that hard couch nightly, and tell her of the heavenly home where it had found a resting-place for them both. When Katharine awoke in the morning, she was surprised to feel how strong the night had made her, and she went forth to the life which had seemed so terrible, with the firm resolve to find out her duty and do it. What human being ever turned resolutely to the performance of a duty without finding some comfort growing up under it? After awhile, Katharine began to see how wise and good the Almighty had been in sending her to that gloomy place; how all unconsciously she had been led to a great work through sorrows that prepared her for it, step by step. If ever woman has a mission except that of performing the duties which come naturally before her day by day, and hour by hour, it is that of nursing the sick, and comforting the afflicted. Women were intended for the gentler works of humanity, and who shall say that the great reformers of the earth can surpass her in this mission of love, or find a channel in all society through which her womanhood can be so beautifully perfected? It is guilt which makes the convict repulsive; attach a firm conviction of innocence, or even repentance to the prisoner and his coarse dress becomes picturesque, his hard fare sublime. When I describe Katharine Allen in prison she is lifted out of all real convict life, but seems to me like an angel wandering through those dark places, as one of old sought out and unlocked the dungeon of the apostle. Suffering had done a heavenly work with this young creature. Certainly, she had been unjustly punished, but had not this chain of events In her solitude, Katharine remembered many a wise lesson and kindly precept that old Mr. Thrasher had taught her when she was restive in her first imprisonment. It was wonderful how deeply the sayings of this good old man had impressed her. It was not long before Katharine was lifted out of the deepest misery of her prison life and placed in the hospital as head nurse of that most horrible place. The unwholesome position of the prison, the dreary darkness of its mines, and the damps that trickled down their walls, engendered diseases of all kinds with frightful rapidity, and that bleak hospital room was always full. Those who know only of the common anguish of comfortably appointed sick chambers can have little idea of the terrible duties which fell upon this young creature. Instead of prayers she heard little but raving curses of the past and eager cries for release from that awful life, which was worse, these poor wretches protested, over and over again, than any punishment which could await their souls beyond the grave. Some would jest desperately about the ways and means of this escape; laugh about the scant shrouds and pine boxes in which they must set forth on the long journey. Others bore their pain with stolid obstinacy, fearing to die, but dreading to get well, for death gave them to the grave, health back into those damp mines, which was a living burial. But the sweet goodness of this young woman, their fellow-prisoner, softened all this. She comforted them with her gentle ways; soothed down the profane spirit that gave out curses instead of groans, and dropped softer feelings into those uneasy souls as Heaven gives dew to weeds trampled along the dusty highway. She never preached, never exhorted them, never forced the prison Bible upon their rejection; but the simple promises of Scripture fell like poetry from her lips, at times when the hungry soul of some poor convict, not utterly lost, seemed to crave comfort at her hands. Sometimes, too, when a sick man, won by her goodness, would ask where she found the beautiful words with which she was striving to comfort him, Katharine would open the Bible and read aloud to convince him of their reality. Then some patient in the next cot would whisper her to read louder, and when her silvery voice was lifted those sick men would turn wearily on the hard pillows and listen. It is no great hardship to read or pray with the sick. Many a dainty person can be found to perform such duties punctiliously; but to work for the sick, to watch with them, wait on them, and with little means supply You ask me if this young girl was unhappy in her dreary life, and I answer no. Those who confer great good on humanity by self-sacrifice, cannot be made utterly miserable. To such hope never dies. No, I say again, the slumber which I cannot pause now to give the details of her strange life, or tell you how many touching events rose each day to interest her best feelings. The prisoners, young and old, began to look upon her with affection. Even the women, whose hearts are not always easy of access to a sister woman, received her little kindnesses, when she found power to offer them, with something like gratitude. All this won upon the officers of the institution. With her they began to enforce the discipline of the prison less rigidly than they had ever done before; employed her in lighter tasks; gave their own needle-work Thus, through her favor with the prison officers and her influence with the convicts, this young woman won for herself a power of good, which those terrible walls had never witnessed since their foundation. |